Sport In Ancient Times

Author : Nigel B. Crowther
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780806139951
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sport in Ancient Times written by Nigel B. Crowther and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A lively survey encompassing the Orient, the Americas, and the classical world From the Olympic Games of Greece to the gladiatorial contests of Rome, sport in the ancient world was fiercely competitive and included a wider range of physical contests than we moderns might suspect. The early Chinese played forms of polo and golf, while half a world away, Hohokam and Maya Indians enjoyed team ball games. Nigel Crowther, a leading authority on classical Greek sport, here casts his net over the entire ancient world to reveal the variety, and often the intensity, of sport in earlier times, from 3000 b.c.e. to the Middle Ages. Taking in twenty premodern societies on five continents--with particular emphasis on ancient Greece and Rome and the Byzantine Empire--he traces connections to modern sporting attitudes, practices, and institutions as he describes how athletics figured in cultural arenas that extended beyond physical prowess to ritual, social status, military associations, and politics. Crowther takes us back to the birth of sumo wrestling in Japan and describes the sports of the Sumerians and Hittites. He documents bull leaping and boxing as recorded on pottery in Crete, as well as running and archery as practiced by the pharaohs in Egypt. He shows the significance of the early Olympic Games, describes the Romans' use of gladiatorial contests for political ends, and analyzes the influence of Byzantine chariot racing on society. He also notes the changing role of women in ancient sports--from their prominence in Egyptian contests, to the mythological Atalanta, to female Roman gladiators. As informative as it is entertaining, Sport in Ancient Times opens new vistas for general readers, students, and sport historians. It offers a broad look at ancient sport and will enrich readers' appreciation of games they enjoy today.

Author : Nigel B. Crowther
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN 13 : 0313051240
Total Pages : 209 pages
Book Rating : 4.41/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sport in Ancient Times written by Nigel B. Crowther and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-01-30 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Crowther offers a fascinating look at the role of sport as practiced in several important civilizations in the ancient world. He not only probes the games themselves, but explores the ways in which athletics figured into cultural arenas that extended beyond physical prowess to military associations, rituals, status, and politics. Sport in Ancient Times has four distinct parts: the Prehistoric Age, historic Greece, ancient Italy, and the Byzantine Empire. Beginning with the earliest civilizations, Crowther examines the military and recreational aspects of sports in prehistoric Egypt, with brief references to other river-valley cultures in Sumeria, Mesopotamia, and Persia. He looks at the rituals of Cretan bull-leaping and boxing in the Bronze Age, the high status of sports in Mycenaean Greece, and the funeral games in the Trojan War as described by the epic poet Homer. In what he terms the historic period, Crowther examines the significance of the ancient Olympic Games, the events of Greek athletics, and the attitude of other civilizations (notably Rome) towards them. He attempts to discover to what extent the Romans believed in the famous ideal of Juvenal, a sound mind in a sound body, and discusses the significance of the famous Baths not only for sport, but also for culture and society. He likewise explores the Roman emphasis on spectator sports and the use of gladiatorial contests and chariot racing for political purposes (the concept of bread and games). The section on the Byzantine Empire focuses, notably, on chariot racing and the riots at sporting contests—riots reminiscent of crowd violence in modern sports such as soccer. Crowther closes with perspectives that bring to life some of the issues revealed in previous chapters. These include a comparison of the social status and significance of a famous Olympic athlete (Milo), a Roman gladiator (Hermes), and a Byzantine chariot racer (Porphyrius). He also addresses the changing role of women in sports in antiquity. Women were prominent in sport in Egypt, for example, but almost entirely absent from the ancient Olympic Games. The final chapter discusses team sports and ball games. Although these were comparatively rare in the ancient world, one may see in those that did exist the forerunners of modern football and hockey.

Author : Michael B. Poliakoff
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780300063127
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.21/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Combat Sports in the Ancient World written by Michael B. Poliakoff and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 1987-01-01 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive study of the practice of combat sports in the ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome and the Near East.

Author : David Matz
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476636249
Total Pages : 238 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Roman Sports, A-Z written by David Matz and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2019-10-31 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:  Chariot races. Gladiatorial combat. Fishing. Hunting. Swimming. The ancient Romans enjoyed these sports--sometimes with fanatical enthusiasm. This reference book contains more than 100 entries covering sporting events and activities of the era, and the Romans who sponsored, competed in and attended them. Charioteer Appuleius Diocles, in a career spanning 24 years, competed in 4,257 races, winning an astounding 1,462 of them. Alypius, the young friend of St. Augustine, was both drawn to and repulsed by gladiatorial battles and struggled to shake his mania for the spectacle of blood sport. Brief abstracts of the entries are included for quick reference, along with an expansive glossary and biographical notes on the ancient authors cited.

Author : Mark Golden
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521497909
Total Pages : 228 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sport and Society in Ancient Greece written by Mark Golden and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-09-10 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sport and Society in Ancient Greece provides a concise and readable introduction to ancient Greek sport. It covers such topics as the links between sport, religion and warfare, the origins and history of the Olympic games, and the spirit of competition among the Greeks. Its main focus, however, is on Greek sport as an arena for the creation and expression of difference among individuals and groups. Sport not only identified winners and losers. It also drew boundaries between groups (Greeks and barbarians, boys and men, males and females) and offered a field for debate on the relative worth of athletic and equestrian competition. The book includes guides to the ancient evidence and to modern scholarship on the subject.

Author : Stephen Gaylord Miller
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780300115291
Total Pages : 310 pages
Book Rating : 4.96/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Ancient Greek Athletics written by Stephen Gaylord Miller and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2004-01-01 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presenting a survey of sports in ancient Greece, this work describes ancient sporting events and games. It considers the role of women and amateurs in ancient athletics, and explores the impact of these games on art, literature and politics.

Author : Donald G. Kyle
Publisher : Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN 13 : 063122971X
Total Pages : 424 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World written by Donald G. Kyle and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2006-09-18 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a readable, up-to-date, illustrated introduction to the history of sport and spectacle in the ancient world from the Ancient Near East through Greek and Hellenistic times and into the Roman Empire. Covers athletics, combat sports, chariot racing, beast fights and gladiators. Traces the precursors of Greek and Roman sports and spectacles in the Ancient Near East and the Bronze Age Aegean. Investigates the origins, nature and meaning of sport, covering issues of violence, professionalism, class, gender and eroticism. Challenges the notion that Greek sport and Roman spectacle were polar opposites. Approaches sport and spectacle as overlapping and compatible features of civilized states and empires.

Author : David Levinson
Publisher : Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN 13 : 0195131959
Total Pages : 508 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Encyclopedia of World Sport written by David Levinson and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1999 with total page 508 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Spanning the wide world of sports, this volume is packed with every conceivable fact that anyone would possibly want to know about nearly 300 sports, including history and practice worldwide.

Author : David Potter
Publisher : Oxford University Press on Demand
ISBN 13 : 0199842736
Total Pages : 455 pages
Book Rating : 4.35/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Victor's Crown written by David Potter and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2012 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Details the role of sports in the classical world from early Greece through the late Roman and early Byzantine empires.

Author : Donald G. Kyle
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118613562
Total Pages : 375 pages
Book Rating : 4.66/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World written by Donald G. Kyle and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-12-31 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second edition of Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World updates Donald G. Kyle’s award-winning introduction to this topic, covering the Ancient Near East up to the late Roman Empire. • Challenges traditional scholarship on sport and spectacle in the Ancient World and debunks claims that there were no sports before the ancient Greeks • Explores the cultural exchange of Greek sport and Roman spectacle and how each culture responded to the other’s entertainment • Features a new chapter on sport and spectacle during the Late Roman Empire, including Christian opposition to pagan games and the Roman response • Covers topics including violence, professionalism in sport, class, gender and eroticism, and the relationship of spectacle to political structures